I don't think it's quite like Android overtaking iOS. Apple's hardware margins are the envy of all device makers, and it milks more ecosystem profit than anyone. A company with that sort of control over lucrative customer segments can afford to let Android eat up low-profit market share. Microsoft, on the other hand, has no significant mobile presence, and the tablet market is maturing even faster than the smartphone market did. I think it's unfair to call Windows 8.1 a useless product or an unmitigated failure-- but I also don't think Microsoft can afford to let it grow organically at its current pace. In the enterprise, both the Windows OS and Microsoft services are fairly insulated, but in consumer/BYOD markets, Microsoft will have to negotiate how much revenue comes from Windows itself, and how much comes from cross-platform services that are decoupled from the OS.

I agree, though, that Microsoft gets way too much pressure to dump Xbox and Bing. Both are already valuable in certain ways, and each offers too much potential to discard.

That doesn't surprise me, mak63-- I think that's a sensible way of looking at Windows 8.1 actually offers, as opposed to what it doesn't. But if customers are generally content after having some context realignment, why is the OS still struggling so much? Do you find that Windows 8.1's benefits, such as they are, just aren't persuasive enough to justify more than targeted deployments? Just curious about your experience.

Why future desktops can not be a combination of touch, voice input and mouse/keyboard?

People can use any input as they say fit. I know mouse/keyboard won't go anywhere anytime soon, but neither does touch enabled systems.Actually, I imagine a future where more and more hybrids and tablets will replace current desktops. Don't you agree?So in order to make touch usable on the desktop everyone has to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars

I disagree with that. Touch screen monitors have been around for a while. They shouldn't be so expensive.

In fact, you can find a 23" touch screen monitor for 150 bucks. That's really not bad.

Also, people or business won't spend a lot of money in modifying furniture to accommodate a computer. They will be better off buying a hybrid or a tablet (with a wireless keyboard and mouse if they think it will be necessary)

I might agree with you. But what I tell my clients & friends is that they will better off thinking that Windows 8/8.1 is a dual system. One for touch, but it still can be used with mouse and keyboard and the regular desktop. They seem to accept the idea. I don't hear much complains about it after that.

My impressions of Windows 8 have been that they should have developed more than one version. They should have had a touch and a non-touch system. The way that they clumped everything together was problematic.

Imagine, for example if you did not buy a touch device that had Windows 8?

I think there is no future for touch on the traditional desktop setup. That said, I do like touch on mobile devices. Touch works there and is a necessity to keep device sizes small. Mobile devices being mainly used for consuming content do not need keyboards. That changes once even light editing is a more common need, the soft keyboards on the screens are not only horrible to type on, they also use up too much screen space which on mobile devices is the biggest premium.

The traditional desktop has a monitor that is mounted upright on top of the desk (thus desktop). Using touch on this traditional setup means reachoing out to a monitor. While that may be fun and functional for the casual action, it is very fatiguing. Besides that, no desktop touch implementation is complete as there is still a need to use mouse and keyboard. If touch on the desktop is to make sense, then it needs to replace mouse and keyboard entirely. Even then, there are drawbacks. The mouse is a much better pointing device than a finger. The small mouse pointer also does not obstruct the screen as the big hand does. With the higher resolution and better accuracy there is also no need for big hunky tiles and buttons that provide plenyt of landing space for fingers.

Let's assume there will be an OS that overcomes all these things, we still have a lot of work to do here. In order to make touch on desktops ergonomical we need to take out the saws, cut holes into our office furniture, and mount the touch monitors into the desktop surfaces at the correct angle. Since touch UIs need to have much larger controls we desperately need at least two monitors just to be able to display what we currently can display. Ideally, a third, specially crafted multi-purpose monitor needs to be mounted that is mainly used as text entry device. If it is to mimic a keyboard (after all, we developed tremendous skills in using keyboards) the special monitor needs to provide tactile feedback. That technology already exists.

OK, so we need to buy more expensive monitors, have to replace all applications so that they all have a touch enabled UI, we have to cut our office furniture into pieces or buy new, and we need an OS that properly supports all that. So in order to make touch usable on the desktop everyone has to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars to just get back to the current productivity levels that can be accomplished with a traditional keyboard and mouse and a cheap upright monitor...and all that to accomplish the exact same stuff as we do now!!

Re: "IDC projects Windows platforms will account for 7% of the smartphone market in 2018 and 10.2% of the tablet market in 2017. In both cases that's a distant third behind Android and iOS. Predictions like these demonstrate why some Microsoft critics resist the company's device ambitions."

Rome wasn't built in a day.

This is the sort of thing people that worried critics about Apple when Android overtook iOS.

I'm also wary (and weary) of Microsoft critics saying that MSFT needs to get out of everything except it's "core business" -- including XBox, Bing, etc..

mak63, I agree with you for some extent. Having touch screen on your laptop will make the life miserable for the user depending on the work they do. But if you have the best practice it will be a nice to have feature.

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